Jakub’s recent post about his mystery images inspired me to do a little sleuthing of my own. I’ve had the top image on my desktop for a long while now labeled “awesome_findit” and never had any idea where it came from. Turns out it was part of a (now a few years old) series of photographs by Asako Narahashi.
I’m a big fan of the whole half awake and half asleep in the water series — concept and execution. I have always been fascinated by the ocean, and bobbing about idly in the waves is one of my favorite things to do. Her photos simultaneously capture the tranquility of this wonderfully lazy activity, while still maintaining the dynamism of an ocean swell. I also really enjoy how heavy the water looks — reminds me of that Keane album title Under the Iron Sea.
The above are some examples of the flags of the various cities, towns and villages of Japan. After looking at these, the “logo” for my town is very depressing. If I had one of these instead, flying over the place I lived, I would feel infinitely cooler and forever at ease. I am amazed at 1) how many different logos there are and 2) how many of them are absolutely incredible.
The original post on Pink Tentacle has many more on display. You can also see the full (and massive) list on Wikipedia.
Non-Format is one of the most exciting studios working today. Comprised of Kjell Ekhorn (Norwegian) and Jon Forss (British), Non-Format is known for an exceptionally innovative approach to typography and a fresh, boundary-smashing graphic style. Clients such as Nike, Coca Cola and The New York Times have all tapped the studio’s award winning and internationally acclaimed design talent. Operating on two continents, Non-Format is based in Oslo, Norway and Minneapolis, USA.
One of my first assignments at design school was to bring in some books that I found inspiring. As I had just started the program, I didn’t really have much to show for myself, and I distinctly remember arriving that day to see that around 3/4 of the class had all brought the same book: Non-Format’s Love Song. The extent of their influence on the field of design became immediately clear to me. Since then I’ve kept a close watch on the studio and am always excited to see what they’ve been working on. Recently I had the privilege of interviewing Jon and Kjell and our exchange is after the jump.
Art & Copy is a film about advertising currently making its way around the country. The film is an in-depth look at some of the best and most creative minds in the business. As director Doug Pray states, “I felt it could be a more powerful statement to focus the film only on those rare few who actually moved and inspired our culture with their work. And that higher standard made me want to make a film that reflected the same kind of disciplined artistic approach that my subjects used.” It looks really interesting and I’m really excited to see it.
The frightening and most difficult thing about being what somebody calls a creative person is that you have absolutely no idea where any of your thoughts come from really — and especially you don’t have any idea where they are going to come from tomorrow. — Art & Copy
We’ve been watchingThe Persuaders in class over the last few weeks and, while it’s not specifically about graphic design per se, it’s easy to draw useful parallels between the two disciplines of advertising and design (as they are often one and the same anyway, whether you like it or not). If you are interested, you can watch all of The Persuaders on the website.
This winter is shaping up to be a pretty excellent time for designers as far as film is concerned. Art & Copy will be in San Francisco in early November, Objectified comes out on DVD on October 13th (so sad they had to push it two weeks due to a “manufacturing snafu”…how ironic), and Visual Acousticswill be here November 6th.
I think I am most excited for Visual Acoustics — I remember writing about it a while ago and have been surviving off of Shulman’s wonderful photography in the meantime. Also worth mentioning is The September Issue, the film chronicling the development and process behind the largest issue of Vogue Magazine. I saw this one recently and would recommend it, but it wasn’t quite as good as I was hoping. It’s exciting to see design related films making their way into the (almost) mainstream!
Side note: Art & Copy employs a beautiful ampersand in the logo for the film. Not sure what it is, but it’s very excellent looking.
The Spacetime Collection is a set of whimsy outer outer space-themed wall decals co-curated by Kitsune Noir and Poketo. They enlisted a talented group of artists to design the collection; Mike Perry, Cody Hudson, Damien Correll, and Andy Miller. Each set is different, but the idea is to combine them to make any kind of wall galaxy that you want.
I spent my morning pasting up the decals and my galaxy is displayed above. This was extremely fun; just pasting things every which way and creating something wacky on the spot. Compared to my normal, highly regimented routine on the computer, this was a refreshing change of pace. I find that I do less and less work “offline” so to speak, and it’s great to spend some time creating without a mouse and keyboard (or design brief and deadline for that matter). My roommates were surprised to find our whiteboard transformed into a very unusual (and exciting) combination of space diagrams and whimisical illustrations. ‘Wonderfully weird’ we determined.
United by House Industries has been my go-to typeface over the last few semesters. It is a massive family — 105 total fonts (three styles, seven weights and five widths). This variety makes it an incredibly versatile collection. I really hate it when I find a typeface that I love, but find it missing a crucial weight or style. (DIN for example — would love to be able to wield more styles). United does not have this problem. I’ve used it on many projects (a few you know; ISO50 EP, Mega Cities book) and in each case the variety allowed it to be implemented in a unique and effective way.
I discovered it a long time ago while searching for the typeface used in a Nike ad (can’t recall which one, but it was amazing). I don’t actually remember if United was employed in the advert, but if you spend any amount of time searching around the typography of the sports world, you are bound to come across United at some point (Fox, I’m pretty sure, uses it for in game football graphics). There is an obvious resemblance of a few of the weights to a very collegiate look, which might be a turn off for some people, but the rest of the styles make up for this ten fold.
The most exciting part for me has always been the fact that each style has five different widths. I love condensed or extended widths and it’s nice to find a worthy competitor to the standards (Univers, Trade Gothic etc). When you need an extra touch of personality, especially if the project skews toward the technical or urban, United does the job nicely.
I don’t know many other designers (at least at school) that use it regularly and I thought I’d spread the word a little. Finding a new typeface is always pretty exciting, so hopefully if you haven’t tried United before, you can give it a shot and experience the sweetness. Anyone else have any hidden gems? I haven’t come across a new super typeface in a while — would love to hear about what people are unexpectedly enjoying these days.
I’ve been enjoying the terrific blog Book Worship recently. The images above are some of the many beautiful books that Shawn Hazen has collected. As I’ve mentioned before, I have never had very good luck combing used bookstores in San Francisco — most of the cool stuff seems particularly adept at hiding from me (that or it’s long gone from the troves of other SF designers looking for the same things). Shawn, as you see, is much better at this than I. Definitely going to keep checking back often for more posts about these books he describes as “…graphically interesting, but otherwise uncollectible, books that entered and exited bookstores quietly in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.”
Easily the coolest advertisement for a fragrance I have ever seen. Tom and Tim Muller put this together as part of the campaign for Diesel’s new fragrance Only the Brave. There are many other videos up on the site — nothing comes close to this. (Though Si Scott’s could be cool in a few weeks.) This video, in addition to being flat out gorgeous, really captures the essence of the phrase only the brave. The Apollo 15 Mission connection is a perfect match:
As I stand out here in the wonders of the unknown at Hadley, I sort of realize there is a fundamental truth to our nature. Man must explore.
UPDATE: Tom Muller has written a post detailing this project on his blog. Great to hear a bit more about this fascinating project.
